Notes / Commercial Description:
When it came time to brew Bottleworks' 13th anniversary beer, we turned to Stone to brew this behemoth. "The Matts" traveled down to San Diego in December to help create this 13-hop, 13-grain monument to our 13 years of selling great craft beer!

A great imperial stout, very black with a Bubbly head and very lacey. Chocolate, coffee, hoppy. Alcohol well hidden. Great dangerous drinkability.Intense mouthfeel.
Radek's bottle, another great Stone hoppy production.Why this is my favourite style.

A: half finger head with poor retention with some light getting through the deep brown/black body.

S: espresso, dark chocolate, roasted malt. Not much on the hop side for the aroma.

T: flavor is fairly sweet with citrus, vanilla and toffee balanced well by the espresso and roasted malts. The bitterness is nicely applied. I just feel the alcohol is coming through more than I would like.

Pours an almost opaque super dark brown with a foamy khaki head that settles to wisps of film on top of the beer. Small dots of lace form around the glass on the drink down. Smell is of malt, smoke, cocoa, and alcohol. Taste is much the same with some citrus zest flavors and an alcohol kick. There is a mild roasty bitterness on the palate with each sip. This beer has a good level of carbonation with a crisp mouthfeel. Overall, this is a good beer that tastes better than it smells in my opinion.

really awesome idea with the 13 grans and 13 hops, some pretty unconventional stuff on the list there. pours a a very thick dark brown into a snifter with a 1 inch tan head. the nose is interesting, i can smell lots of chocolate, rye, west coast hops, and a woody syrup very similar to the birch syrup used in sierra nevada's life and limb. in fact, the beer smells quite similar to the taste of life and limb. the taste here is surprisingly hoppy up front, followed by a mellow chocolatey earthy sweetness and a warm alcoholic finish. the beer gets downright overpowering when it warms up a bit. the 11% really comes out. feel good, full bodied on this one, which i suppose is expected with all the grains here. medium carbonation, and a booze burn. this one might have been served by a little brighter carbonation. also a beer potentially very nice to age awhile and let it settle down a bit. in any event, the idea is awesome, and the beer is pretty darn different, so check it out. for less than 8 dollars a bomber the bang for the buck is great on this one.

Served on-draught into a Leffe goblet at The Daily Pint in Santa Monica, California. Reviewed from notes. Expectations were average given the brewery, which I find to be rather overrated. Cost was somewhere in the neighborhood of $7.00 USD plus tax and tip.

Not paired with food.

A: Pours a two finger head of nice cream, good thickness, and great retention (~3 minutes or more) considering the high ABV. Colour is a nontransparent solid black. No yeast particles are visible. No bubble show.

T: Chocolate, roast, coffee, hints of vanilla, cream, and a dark malt foundation. The balance is okay, but far from ideal. The flavours ring rather distinct because they don't mesh well together. They compete for attention, to the flavour's detriment. Built okay. Complex but misguided. Not as subtle as the aroma suggests. Some layering is present, but still the notes can be found in isolation. Too bitter. Too much coffee, negatively impacting the balance.

Dr: Drinkable but unremarkable. I wouldn't have it again. It's above average, yes, but it's quite overpriced. A disappointment in the style. It does hide its ABV well, to its credit. Another mundane brew from Stone.

Appearance: Pours with a massive head that just lays down on top of the coffee colored liquid; all kinds of lace splashes are left behind

Smell: Coffee, chocolate, smoke, fruitcake, pine and God knows what else - its like the kitchen sink of beer aromas

Taste: Gobs of malt flavor, up front, with caramel, chocolate, coffee, fruitcake and smoke; not as hoppy as expected, in the middle, but there is a piney aspect that balances out the malt; the finish pulls it all together, with the sweeter elements ultimately prevailing

Mouthfeel: Full bodied with moderate carbonation

Overall: Based on the rating, I was not expecting to enjoy this as much as I did - just goes to show; love the kitcvhen sink element of this beer and it just works, to me

22 ounce bottle into tulip glass, bottled in March 2012. Pours nearly opaque dark brown color with a 1-2 finger dense khaki head with great retention, that reduces to a nice cap that lingers. Spotty soapy lacing clings on the glass. Aromas of orange, grapefruit, toast, caramel, brown sugar, roasted malt, brown bread, floral, pine, molasses, light chocolate, light smoke, and roasted/floral earthiness. Very nice aromas with good balance and complexity of malt and hop notes; with good strength. Reminds me of double bastard in a way. Taste of orange zest, grapefruit, caramel, brown sugar, toast, molasses, roasted malt, light chocolate, floral, pine, brown bread, light smoke, and roasted/floral earthiness. Fair amount of earthy pine bitterness on the finish; with lingering notes of citrus, caramel, toast, brown sugar, brown bread, roasted malt, molasses, light chocolate, light smoke, and roasted/floral earthiness on the finish for a good bit. Very nice balance and complexity of dark/bready malt and hop flavors; with a good malt/bitterness balance and zero cloying flavors after the finish. Medium carbonation and medium-full bodied; with a creamy, slick, and fairly sticky mouthfeel that is nice. Alcohol is very well hidden with only a slight warming noticed after the finish. Overall this is an excellent strong ale! All around nice balance and complexity of hop and malt flavors; and very smooth to sip on. They may have used 13 hops and 13 grains; but they definitely found a good balance to make it work. A very enjoyable offering.

This beer looks really interesting, an interesting beer from Bottleworks and thanks to Stone for doing the legwork that allowed it's distribution to me. A long hot day running around with my son all day, and then got really cold and rainy to finish seemed like a perfect day for this beer.

it pours a creamy darker colored 1+ finger head that fades fairly slowly with plenty of nice lacing, over a super dark murky brown-black colored beer with no real light coming through.

Nose has a lot of the typical stone hops at first, plenty of spicy earthy hops, chewy hops and a bit of pine as well, with hints of citrus, smells like a typical stone American Black Ale (Black IPA), all that merges well with the dark malts, a bit of roast with some creamy coffee, a bit of dark chocolate and mocha, a light caramel and molasses, and even a hint of booze trickling out.

Taste brings malts at first this time, quite creamy, with a milk chocolate and mocha java , light roast with hints of coffee, caramel and toasted oats, light oatmeal, with some light sweetness and some warming toasty booze. The complex layers of creamy and dark malts give way to hops galore, plenty of spicy hops fairly dominant, with some earthiness, a bit of citrus and orange zest but not much, and even a bit of pine. The hops add a pretty decent bitterness that is accentuated by the roasty malts, but not overly bitter or astringent. As it moves towards the finish, a nice creamy coffee takes over, with some oats and bit of creamy cocoa before becoming completely hops, with a long somewhat bitter spicy and chewy hop flavor lingering for a while. It's fairly dry on the finish without much sticky feel.

Mouth is fuller bodied and fairly creamy, somewhat rich, with decent carb, and some warming booze.

Overall a pretty nice beer, a cross between creamy porter and cascadian dark ale (or black IPA whatever its called), with typical Stone like hops and malts for their black IPAs, with nice malt characteristics, decent hops that get slightly nagging as they build but not overpowering, and a nice overall drinkable beer especially for 11% abv.

Poured into an imperial nonic a deep dark brown with a tinge of amber,a creamy one finger light colored head atop that left a few browken rings of lace as it settled slowly.Raisin and sweet cakey aromas with mild earthy hops,it smells like a big sweet alcohol bomb.I am glad to see that it's not a sweet alcohol bomb so much on the palate,there is a sweet dark fruit and cake-like flavors along with some chocolate and mild roast,a earthy almost woody finish to the beer makes it pretty well balanced.A full creamy feel to the beer makes it enjoyable with rich flavors and sticky aftermath,it's a good beer if a bit odd.

Big thanks to drabmuh for the chance to try this one. Served in a mini snifter. Pours a moderately-dark caramel brown color with a decent off-white/tan head. Nose carries some sweet malts and a cornucopia of hop character. This is just a mess. Flavor doesn’t go in any direction. What’s the point in having such a gimmicky ingredient list? No one cares and it doesn’t smell or taste very good. Nothing is defined and the best words to describe this beer are "hops" and "malt." Maybe alcohol too. Not recommended.

As you might expect, this is rich and powerful, though not as bitter as the typical Stone brews. Dark brown in the tulip glass with a beige foam. Odd lack of lacing down the glass, but maybe this stuff is a solvent.

Dark bitter chocolate is the main flavor, and plenty of it. Deep roasted coffee and Raisinettes candy. Lots of sweetness, and a hint of date sugar or cactus candy. Huge mouthfeel of liqueur-like dimensions including the hot alchohol presence. Candy-like aftertaste with a long, lingering bitterness. I still taste chocolate-covered caramels at the very end.

Whatever you call it, this is a dessert in a glass. Maybe it's better on vanilla ice cream. Seriously.

22oz bottle poured into my Dogfish snifter. It poured dark brown in color with a thin tan head barely covering the top of the beer.

The aroma has a lot going on in it, I seem to get the malts and hops pretty equally though actually. It's got some roasted, chocolate and caramel malt flavors as well as a citrusy, slight American black Ale like flavor to it. It comes together pretty well actually and all the flavors feel pretty well balanced.

The taste also has a bunch of different hoppy and malty flavors to it. Chocolate and roasted malts seem to come out a little more at first, while the hoppy citrus really starts to come out towards the finish. There is a good amount of sweeter, malty flavors but at the same time the bitter, roasted malts and citrus rind flavors balance it pretty well. The more it warmed though the more I noticed a strong alcohol presence lingering in the finish. Pretty decent flavors overall.

The mouthfeel is leaning towards the heavier side with carbonation being a little above average. Overall, it was a pretty good beer. Everything comes together pretty well and it feels relatively balanced. It feels like it has a bit of everything in it, almost to the point of being overwhelming and unfocused though.

O - An awesome brew. Stir it up to get some of the sediment before you pour it out - it does wonders to smooth out and integrate the profile. The booze is bigger in the nose than the profile, and in the end it works out beautifully.